THE NEW POLAND
SIR,—Miss Krystyna Barcz has misunderstood my reference to the Polish Underground Army in your issue of the 20th December. I was not re- ferring to the present " underground " movement, but to the Under- ground Home Army, which did heroic sabotage against German communications during the late war, and which finally, as a result of its amazing courage in the Battle of Warsaw, was granted combatant status,
not only by the British and American, but also the German, authorities. As to the present underground movement—I have no desire to uphold murders, by whomever committed, but Miss Barcz should realise that if, as she says, we British people are "law-loving," or more accurately perhaps, " law-abiding "-(!) it is because we know that our laws have been passed by a Parliament to which all parties have been free to send re- presentatives, and in which, therefore, all points of view have had a chance of being heard. Further,, that our Government and the officials who serve it cannot act except in accordance with the law, and that if any of us are arrested we shall have a fair trial. 'Where, as I fear is the case in Poland, people can be arrested without any such assuranCe, and some political parties are proscribed, many people may take refuge in forests and lead a hand-to-mouth existence which may easily lead to law breaking.
As to Miss Barcz's question as to what " Etnopean freedom" means:— It means a Europe in which there is everywhere freedom of speech, of the Press, of religion, above all, freedom from the fear of arbitrary arrest and lack of fair trial. When this blessed freedom has been restored to Poland I cannot but think that most of the men now in her forests will return to their homes and there will be no more " underground."— Yours faithfully, KATHARINE ATHOLL. Chairman, British League for European Freedom. 66 Elizabeth Street, S.W.'.
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